According to surveys and government data cited in the online article “The Changing Face of America’s Veteran Population,” 40 years ago about 18% of Americans were veterans. Today that number stands at 6%. 

As I peruse the shelves in the Jackson County Library’s “new releases” section, it is evident to me that there are more new titles written by women than by men. And while this may be true in literary circles in much the same way it is in politics these days, many of the storylines in these books being written by women have to do with a feminine renaissance that is going on world-wide.

Rick Childers will share his debut novel, “Turkeyfoot,” in conversation with Meagan Lucas at 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva. 

Over 30 years ago, I read Helen Hooven Santmyer’s “And Ladies of the Club,” a doorstopper of a book chronicling life in a small Ohio town from the post-Civil War era to the early 1930s.

On the first Saturday of June, my friend John and I were just leaving McKay Used Books in Manassas, Virginia, when I spotted a woman young enough to be my granddaughter seated at a table topped by a couple of piles of books.

If Monica Wood’s “How to Read a Book” were a painting rather than a novel, it would be a triptych, one of those three-paneled works of art often hinged together so that it can be closed or displayed open.

Two novels, one a classic Western set in 1885 Nevada, the other centered on Barcelona and the aftermath of the Spanish Civil war, snagged my attention this past week. I was busy, but every time I caught a break, I was on the front porch, enjoying the May weather and turning the pages.  

A little over three years ago, a stranger in a coffee shop with whom I’d struck up a conversation excused himself from the table, walked to his car and returned with a copy of Steven Pressfield’s “Gates of Fire.”

For me mystery novels are summer. They are captivating, enjoyable and the perfect thing to read on a vacation.

It was another ordinary day when I swung by the public library on my way to town. I picked out a couple of DVDs I needed — “Groundhog Day” and “Ghosts” — and then drifted along the “New Arrivals” bookshelves, browsing the authors and titles.